Meeting Paul Ryan

While waiting, beside the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a museum ship docked in Norfolk, Virginia, for Mitt Romney to come out and announce his choice for Vice-Presidential candidate, a Fox News reporter talked about the rapport between the two men: “They seemed to finish each other’s sentences!” They seemed, today, to have finished each other’s wardrobes: Romney appeared without a jacket, and Ryan without a tie—and also to have switched each other’s lines, with Romney summing up his remarks by saying that he was there to introduce “the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!”

Was this Mitt, visitor from another planet and time, mixing up which year he’d materialized in? Or just Mitt, who, even at this stage in his career, is surprisingly clumsy? Others have made this mistake; Politico pointed out that Obama sort of did, introducing Biden, though he fixed it in the same sentence. And nothing matches Jimmy Carter, at the 1980 convention, giving a shout-out to “Hubert Horatio Hornblower.” But sometimes slips like that are telling, perhaps because they expose ambitions or reinforce doubts; this one may be, though, in that it reveals a strange lack of insistence, on Romney’s part, on his own identity.

But nothing was going to break Romney’s mood this morning. He hopped over, smiling, and made a joke about how he made mistakes: “I did not make a mistake with this guy.” Before that, in his introduction, after congratulating Virginians on their choice of Republican governor (“way to go!”) he had talked about how Ryan had been shaped by his father’s death when he was in high school, about his firm Catholic faith (that was one of the biggest applause lines; Ayn Rand wasn’t mentioned), and about how no one, anywhere, in the whole world or in either party, didn’t respect Ryan’s “character and judgment.” Those are two very different things; Ryan’s judgments about priorities have not always been respected, as Ryan, in his sulking response to Obama’s attack on his budget, was once the first to say. (See Ryan Lizza for more on that.)

And one wonders how prepared Romney is to defend the substance, as opposed to the general vibe, of Ryan’s proposals: in his introduction, Romney talked about how they’d “preserve and protect Medicare and Social Security,” including for “future generations”; that’s not quite how it would work, unless “future generations” just means anyone now in his or her fifties. Then again, given the approach to language in this campaign, who knows what Romney means?

He did look happy, and so did Ryan, when he came out. “And right in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin! Man!” Ryan said, as if it were a happy coincidence, rather than a piece of stagecraft. “I’m surrounded by the people I love. I love you, too. And I’ve been asked by Governor Romney to serve the country I love.” Ryan talks about Romney’s excellence “in so many different arenas” (although the timing of this announcement might raise some doubts about Mitt’s commitment to the Olympics). And Romney looked more comfortable with him than with most people; Ryan looked like he and his wife could slip easily into a Romney family group portrait. One can probably look forward to moments, on the campaign trail, when he and one of the Romney sons are mistaken for each other.

Family was also a part of Ryan’s message: “My dad died when I was young. He was a good and decent man.” Of the words from his father that stayed with him, he said, the ones that applied to the moment were a line about being either part of the solution or part of the problem (Romney: solution; Obama: problem), and his father’s reminders that “every generation of Americans leaves their children better off.” But now, he said, “we’re in a different and dangerous moment.”

Over the years I have seen and heard from a lot from families, from those running small businesses, and from people who are in need. But what I have heard lately, that troubles me the most. There is something different in their voice and in their words.

What I hear from them are diminished dreams, lowered expectations, uncertain futures. I hear some people say that this is just “the new normal.” Higher unemployment, declining incomes, and crushing debt is not a new normal. It’s the result of misguided policies.

It seems unlikely that this was a reference to “The New Normal,” a forthcoming TV show about a gay couple and the woman they hire as a surrogate mother. Ryan hasn’t been a big presence on social and cultural issues—at least, he hasn’t much, yet. That part, in the next months, should be interesting.

Ryan, despite the cheerfulness, will no doubt be the sort of Vice-Presidential candidate who attacks—even if the tone is sadder than the angry, pitying voice he has perfected. He, like his running mate, will need to be sure that the pleasure he projects in what he frames as his own good sense does not come across as condescension. In his remarks, Ryan talked about the need for all of us to regard those who are successful “with pride, not resentment.”

About that success: One assumes—but why assume anything?—that before winning his spot on the ticket Ryan, his record, and his finances were thoroughly examined by the Romney campaign, along with any poll numbers that would have made him a desirable acquisition, on top of the overt pressure from conservatives. He might have even given them his tax returns; one wonders if the rest of us will see them, too. Perhaps he can serve as a proxy for his new boss in that regard. (Ryan has worked in the public sector most of his adult life, but apparently had a modest—in Romney terms—but useful amount of family money to work with.)

And standing on the deck of the U.S.S. Wisconsin is, no doubt, a success for him. Romney’s mistake wasn’t really much of one—if he’s not the next President, he is positioned to be the next but one. A good many Vice-Presidents do become President, one way or another, sooner or later. At this level—the final four—both major parties’ candidates and running mates have to be regarded in the light of the Oval Office. They also have to be challenged, and questioned, that way. Let’s begin the process with Ryan.

For more on Romney, Ryan, and the rest of the campaign, bookmark The Political Scene, our hub for coverage of the 2012 election.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty

Amy Davidson Sorkin, a New Yorker staff writer, is a regular contributor to Comment for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.